Journal of International Development: Vol. 8, No.

6, 859-867 (1996)

REVIEW ARTICLE
PERSPECTIVES ON A NEW WORLD
FOOD CRISIS
SIMON MAXWELL
Institute of Development Studies, Brighton, UK

Food, Health and Survival in India and Developing Countries, by STUART

GILLESPIE and GERALDINE McNEILL. Oxford: (Oxford University Press,
1992, pp. iii +216.)
World Food Aid, by JOHN SHAW and E D W A R D CLAY, (WFP, James Currey/
Heinemann, 1993, pp. xii +
244.)
The International Organization of Hunger, by PETER UVIN, (London: Kegan,
Paul International, 1994, pp. xvi +
334.)
The Emerging Global Food System, by G E R A L D G A U L L and R A Y GOLD-
BERG (eds), (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 1993, pp. xii 252.) +
A Blighted Harvest: The World Bank and African Agriculture in the 1980s, By
PETER GIBBON, KJELL HAVNEVIK and KENNETH HERMELE, (James
Currey/Africa World Press, 1993, pp. vii 168.) +
The World Food Problem, by DAVID GRIGG, (second edn), (Oxford, Blackwell,
1993, pp. xv + 303.)

INTRODUCTION

Food is back, so to speak, on the menu. The evidence for this is to be found, not so much
in the recent smorgasbrod of books on the subject, but rather in the enthusiasm of the
manifold maitres d’ who control the seating in the global restaurant. Why, we have even
had a World Food Summit in 1996!
This is something of a turn-around. Food and food security issues were prominent in
the second half of the 1980s, partly as a response to the African famine of 1984-85, but
more importantly as a proxy for poverty in the debate about the impact on the poor of
structural adjustment (Hindle, 1990). The World Bank and F A 0 both launched new pro-
grammes in food security, usually involving the preparation of national food security plans.
In the 1990s, poverty came back onto the agenda in its own right, overshadowing, in some
cases subsuming, food security. The teams of people who had been preparing food security
strategies in the 1980s found themselves preparing poverty strategies in the 1990s.
This did not mean, of course, that the gravity of food problems in the world had
diminished. Indeed, it could plausibly be argued that it had in fact increased. While inter-
nationally comparative data showed a gradual decline in the global prevalence of under-
nutrition, there was stagnation or even reversal of the trends in some regions (notably
sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America), combined with a very rapid increase in
the numbers affected by food shocks, caused mainly by drought or war. A question to
which we shall need to return is why it is that international attention to food issues is so
fickle.

CCC 0954-1748/96/060859-09
01996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
860 S. Maxwell

TWO PERSPECTIVES ON THE ‘WORLD FOOD PROBLEM’

In the mid-l990s, the debate on food security is driven by two, potentially conflicting, forces.
The two reflect the main competing tendencies that have dominated the debate on food
security since the early 1970s.
The first harks back to the concern with global food availability, which was fired by the
doubling of grain prices during the world food crisis of 1972-74, inspired the World Food
Conference of 1974, and led eventually to a series of international initiatives primarily
concerned with the security of world food supplies (the creation of the World Food Council
and the F A 0 Committee on Food Security, the strengthening of the Food Aid Convention,
the creation of the IMF cereal financing facility among others). At the time, this perspective
on the world food problem, as largely one of supply and global food management, came
under attack from nutritionists concerned with how poor people acquired access to food.
With Amartya Sen on their side, and bolstered by the evidence that the secular decline of
grain prices continued, the nutritionists scored a decisive victory. From the early 1980s
onwards, food security policy was almost entirely concerned with food entitlement.
In the 1990s, however, the Malthusians have made a come-back. The futurologists are
busy: F A 0 to 2010, IFPRI to 2020 and Brown University to 2050. The Worldwatch Institute,
as usual, is frothing at the mouth. And the international food economy has been shaken
(though not as vigorously as some would like) by GATT and by the collapse of the Soviet
Union. There is certainly no consensus around the Malthusian position. However, there are
sufficient straws in the wind to suggest that Malthus may be stirring: a decline in the rate of
growth of cereal yields, as the Green Revolution begins to run out of steam and new
problems of salinity, soil erosion and chemical pollution constrain input-intensive agri-
culture; stagnation, perhaps even decline, in food availability per capita, associated with a
decline in the rate of growth of production, but also with constantly increasing population;
and the threat at least of increasing food prices as subsidies are cut and the demand pressure
on food supplies increases. The financial and technical interconnections underlying these
observed phenomena are complex and by no means point universally to pessimistic out-
comes. However, it is certainly true to say that world food supply is being discussed
internationally as it has not been for twenty years.
At the same time, the now traditional concern with food entitlement, hunger and malnut-
rition has acquired a new urgency, caused principally by the rapid growth in the number
and severity of crises requiring emergency food aid. There are many indicators of this need.
The share of aid budgets devoted to emergency relief has risen from 2 per cent to over 10
per cent in a decade. For the World Food Programme (WFP), the main multilateral source
of food aid, emergencies now account for over 70 per cent of total commitments (WFP,
1994). Even for a more diversified aid programme, like that of the UK, the share of
emergency aid has risen from 2 per cent to 16 per cent in the last decade. The costs are high
also at the national level. For example, the relief operation for the 1992 drought in southern
Africa is estimated to have cost the equivalent of 12 per cent of regional GDP (Mugwara,
1994). Many of the worst emergencies are now associated with war and the human suffering
is acute. As one indicator, the number of refugees in Africa has grown by 12 per cent per
annum since 1970 and now stands at 16 million (ACC/SCN, 1995). These developments
have given a new urgency to the burgeoning literatures on vulnerability, relief management
and approaches to linking relief and development (Maxwell and Buchanan-Smith, 1994).
These are two valid, important and urgent sets of issues that require food to be on the
international agenda. However, they lead in different directions. On the one hand, a
concern with world food supplies pushes analysis and policy in the direction of production,
often with an emphasis on using new technology to increase food production in high
potential areas. Thus, biotechnology features prominently in the debate, as the possible
source of a new green revolution. On the other hand, hunger and malnutrition tend to be
concentrated among poor people vulnerable to shocks, often in resource-poor and low-
potential areas. Here, the emphasis is on small-scale interventions, to stabilize and increase
incomes at the margin. In technical terms, these approaches may not be incompatible.
However, resource constraints means that choices may have to be made: in research,
physcial infrastructure, input supply and support to marketing.
 New World Food Crisis 861

Thus food security analysis is a potential minefield and needs clear-headed analysis at
present: about the character of the world food problem; to understand why it has become
prominent; and to see what are the policy priorities.

THECURRENTDEBATE

Do these six books provide answers to the questions? They are a diverse bunch, in scope,
geographical coverage and political perspective.
Gaull and Goldberg contains the papers presented at the second Ceres conference in 1991,
an event which brought together researchers, politicians and industrialists with an interest
in the global food system. It is particularly strong on technology, food safety and regulation.
Gibbon et al. is an outlier in this group, being concerned with the impact of structural
adjustment in Africa, rather than specifically with food. It is the final report of a project by
the Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, involving case studies in Ghana, Kenya,
Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
Gillespie and McNeill is a book drawn from two PhDs in South India, essentially con-
cerned with measuring and understanding nutrition problems amongst children and adults,
but with a useful literature review and an extended postcript on nutrition policy.
Grigg is the second edition of a text book first published in 1985, which provides an
overview of food production and consumption trends. About half the book consists of a
region by region analysis, dealing mainly with agricultural development.
Shaw and Clay is a compendium of case studies of food aid experience, by both recipients
and donors, originally submitted as papers for discussion by WFP’s governing body, the
Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes.
Finally, Uvin is another PhD, this time by a political scientist, concerned to explain how
the dominant regimes of international politics come into being, by examining food trade,
food aid, population and structural adjustment.
Taken as a group, the books offer a wealth of information, from detailed reviews of the
secondary literature, through discussions of methodology, to orginal field data. All recognize
the link between the macro and the micro in the food arena. Most recognize the value of
cross-disciplinary analysis. On the other hand, and again taking the books as a group, they
have a slightly dated feel. A number are based on work carried out in the mid to late 1980s
and thus pre-date the emergence of the new food agenda. There is very little discussion of
emergencies, certainly in the context of war and refugee crises, but also more generally.
Indeed, food shocks are almost nowhere discussed. Further, the texts make little reference
to the new poverty agenda and to the way in which development discourse has changed
since the 1990 World Development Report (World Bank, 1990). In these senses, the books
are not wholly representative of the current output on food issues. Nevertheless, they do
provide pointers in dealing with the questions we have identified.

THE CHARACTER OF THE WORLD FOOD PROBLEM

First, what is the character of the world food problem? Reflecting what Uvin, as a political
scientist, would probably call the ‘dominant regime’ of the time, these books are not much
concerned with global food supply. Instead, they tend rather to celebrate the fact that food
production has grown faster than population, and identify the world food problem as a
problem of hunger in the midst of plenty. The one exception is the short piece by Gerald
Trant in Gaull and Goldberg which looks briefly to the future, pointing out that population
may rise by 60 per cent in the next 30 years: in Asia, this means producing enough to feed
a new China; in Africa, enough to feed 2% people for every person living there today.
Though hunger is the problem, it is difficult to measure, for populations at the national
and global level, and for individuals at the community level. Uvin and Grigg, in particular,
offer explanations of the different approaches to measurement, from aggregate food balance
sheets, through consumption surveys to anthropometry. Both refer to debates about BMR,
identify problems with the statistics and emphasize the complex interaction between malnu-
trition and infection. Both also present alternative estimates of the numbers involved.
862 S. Maxwell

Uvin’s account is shorter, but also more up-to-date. Some of Grigg’s data goes back to the
1950s, much of it to the 1960s and 70s. Neither author makes use of the most comprehensive
reviews, prepared by the ACCISCN for the second review of the world nutrition situation
and by FAO/WHO for the International Conference on Nutrition, both in 1992 (ACC/SCN
1992; FAOIWHO 1992). Uvin does, however, provide a useful caution against using any
figures. He emphasizes that different agencies always have different interests in presenting
figures about hunger and malnutrition: the stakes are very high in this ‘figure-dance’. ‘All
over the world . . . specialists are busy cutting requirements and increasing availabilities, or
vice versa, in short, computing ‘their’ numbers of malnourished and advancing their careers’
(P. 73).
It might be thought that defining hunger is easier at the village level. Gillespie and
McNeill’s excellent account shows, however, that this is far from the case. They show that
energy stress is the outcome of complex social processes, related not only to income
entitlements, but also to sanitation, infectious disease and maternal caring capacity. Further-
more, ‘food is one of the most basic objects of social exchange in rural societies in the
developing world’ (p. l), with social, biological and anthropological dimensions. Their
literature review includes a comprehensive account of biological, physiological and social/
behavioural adaptation to energy stress, as well as a review of the social sources of vulner-
ability. The case study material includes detailed accounts of food provisioning and food
consumption in relation to activity level by both adults and children. The data include
detailed analysis of activity patterns, interpretation of BMI (body mass index) calculations
and morbidity patterns. In terminology originally developed by UNICEF, nutritional depri-
vation is shown to result from a complex interaction between inadequate household food
entitlement, lack of women’s control of resources and the ‘malnutrition-infection complex’.
However, activity level is central. The study defines its own most important conclusion as
follows: ‘energy intake alone is not a useful indicator of the adequacy of energy nutrition,
. . . (when) the level of energy expenditure in physical activity is so variable within and
between populations’ (p. 101).
There are some surprising omissions even in this account. One is the question of micro-
nutrient deficiency, particularly iron, iodine and vitamin A, the impact and treatment of
which is now the hottest topic in the nutrition literature. For example, vitamin A supple-
mentation for needy populations has been shown to have quite dramatic impact, not just
on the well-known prevalence of xeropthalmia, but more widely on morbidity and mortality
(Beaton et al., 1993). Only Grigg of the books reviewed here has a discussion of micro-
nutrients. The other omission is a discussion of the interaction between government policy
and observed levels of under-nutrition. Gillespie and McNeill devote the last quarter of their
book to an analysis of policies and programmes affecting nutrition in their study areas in
Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. It is unfortunate that their field data do not enable them
to say anything about the impact of these measures on the households studied.
More generally, an understanding of the character of the world food problem needs a
discussion of causes as well as outcomes. Here, the analysis ranges from international trade
regimes (Uvin), through ‘modes of accumulation’ at the national level (Gibbon et ul.), to a
micro-level perspective on social differentiation at the village level (Gillespie and McNeill).
Grigg provides an overview of these various themes in his regional chapters, with the
addition of more detailed analysis of production systems and technologies.
All this is fairly well-trodden territory. None of the books discusses the main causes of
famine in the 1990s, which are war and insecurity. Nor, given the time at which they were
written, do any of the books offer an analysis of food trade and aid regimes post-GATT’.
None of the books really make the link either between the experience of hunger and the
rapidly changing nature of the world food economy. This is brought starkly to the forefront
by Gaul1 and Goldberg and their 22 contributors. The preoccupations of this group are with
the greater interconnectedness of the world food system and the legal and regulatory frame-
work within which technical and institutional innovations are managed. Despite a token
appearance by Gerry Trant, there is no driving concern here for the needs of the world’s
poor. However, this latter group will certainly not be shielded from the effects on the
quality, availability and price of food of genetic engineering in production and new infor-
mation technology in marketing and distribution. How, for example, are peasants in
 New World Food Crisis 863

Ethiopia to respond when ‘farmers are often asked to tailor their crop selection to the
specific needs of producers and processors, who are pressed to change product compositional
quality swiftly to meet the demands of a fickle market place?’ (p. 220).
Indeed, to echo Uvin, it is interesting to ask whose interests are represented in the rapid
evolution of the food system. One of Gavll and Goldberg’s most interesting chapters is the
transcript of a ninety minute panel discussion featuring industrialists, legislators and consumer
protection activists, around a hypothetical new genetically-engineered and pest-resistant
apple. The level of real animosity between the industrialists and the campaigners is apparent
and a malicious delight to read. Jeremy Rifkin, the consumer activist, absorbs potentially
libellous abuse and is the hero of the book. He may or may not be right that consumer
interests are often neglected in producing new food products. He probably is. The hostility
he attracts from industrialists certainly suggests that there are issues that need to be high on
the world food agenda. Modes of accumulation, indeed.
This is not to argue for autarchy. None of the books reviewed proposes de-linking from
the world economy. The role of cash crop exports as a route to growth is universally
acknowledged. However, the debate about the character of the world food problem does
emphasize the complexity of the issue and bring to light the many different influences on
its evolution. In this world, Peter Uvin is a particularly useful guide. He is concerned with
the sociology of international politics and with the political and sociological roots of the
dominant principles governing the explanation of and the solution to world food problems.
From a theoretical perspective, he is interested in ‘regimes’,as the dominant principles which
govern the approach to a problem. These result from a complex interdependence of
institutions and may not necessarily reflect the interests of all the players. However, power
is important, because it helps to create the capacity to create dominant principles and norms.
Uvin does not address the question of why food should again become a dominant issue
in the 1990s. However, the application of his principles does suggest that a certain cynicism
is in order. The plight of the hungry is certainly an important topic. In addition, cynics
seeking an explanation might point to the need of a new Director General to relaunch the
FAO, to the perceived need to reverse the decline in budgets of the agricultural research
institutes of the CGIAR, and to the squeeze on development aid budgets associated with
the dramatic rise in spending on emergencies in the 1980s. The trick, presumably, is to
welcome these interests if they succeed in keeping food on the agenda; but, at the same
time, ensure that their interests and preferences do not remain hidden and unchallenged in
the development of new dominant principles and food-related regimes.
That danger certainly exists. For example, it would not be surprising if the agricultural
interests of the F A 0 and the CGIAR were to combine to reinforce a neo-Malthusian
perspective on world food problems, with the emphasis on producing more food, usually
with a concentration of inputs and new technology in high potential areas. Such a strategy
might or might not benefit the current majority of hungry people, who mostly live in
conditions of extreme vulnerability and variability in low potential areas.

APPROACHES TO POLICY

What, then, are the solutions on offer? Four levels of prescription run through these books.
First, changes at the level of the world economy, with a particular emphasis on free trade.
Secondly, agricultural development, including technical change, as the main plank in struc-
tural adjustment and poverty reduction programmes. Thirdly, specific nutrition interven-
tions. And, finally, to facilitate all the above, development and emergency aid, particularly
food aid.

The Policy-Making Process

Reducing hunger, however, is not simply about choosing the right policy under all these
heads. Uvin has already warned us about the need to understand the political constraints
to improved policy. He argues, for example, that ‘policy changes . . . which are politically
sensitive (and many are) are constrained by this necessity to be backed by a sufficiently
864 S. Maxwell

powerful domestic commitment . . . (in the case of structural adjustment) the Bretton Woods
institutions forgot this: they wanted policy change without bothering about the coalition of
interests behind the policies to be changed’ (p. 266). This is the perspective of a political
scientist. Gillespie and McNeill take the perspective of public administration, building on
the work of Clay and Schaffer in ‘Room for Mnnoeuvre’ (Clay and Schaffer, 1984). They
reject a linear model of decision making, which begins by defining a problem, works through
alternatives and finally reaches a ‘decision’, to focus instead on a reality of decision making
which reflects different agendas and establishments; ‘ideally, the range of choice in policy
should not be constrained by embedded sectoral agendas with their routine categories of
data, problems, strategies, classifications and determination of feasible actions’ (p. 49).
Gillespie and McNeill also draw an important distinction between ‘contextual policies’
which form a backdrop to nutritional policy-making and programme design, and more direct
interventions which are motivated primarily by concern for food consumption and nutritional
status. Both are important, but food and nutrition specialists are more likely to be able to
influence the second than the first.

Trade Policy

Trade clearly falls into the category of a contextual policy. These books are generally in
favour of trade, though recognizing the manifold political influences on trade regimes
(Uvin), the risks for the poor of cash cropping (Gillespie and McNeill) and the need for
new approaches to coordination and regulation (Gaull and Goldberg). The latter may be
particularly important since the current food trade regime is ‘anarchic’ and ‘unregulated’
(Uvin) .
This is fine as far as it goes, but does not get us very far. Peter Uvin is very good at
explaining why certain regimes come into operation, but does not see it as part of his remit
either to say what better regimes would look like or to analyse what political strategies might
bring them about. By contrast, Gaull and Goldberg’s contributors are interested in how
regimes might change, but mostly in the context of northern agriculture. There is a detailed
discussion of how food safety legislation might be harmonized, and also a debate about the
need to reform the common agricultural policy, so that it serves consumer and environmental
interests, rather than simply those of producers. However, even in the north, there is little
guidance on how the negative short-term effects of regime changes might be mitigated. The
editors talk of a ‘shake-down’ period and, without being specific, about ‘a need for economic
safety-nets during the period of adjustment from national protectionism to international free
trade’ (p. 222).

Agricultural Development

If developing countries are to participate competitively in agricultural trade, then agricul-

tural development will be essential, to reduce costs as well as to improve incomes and reduce
vulnerability. Uvin reminds us that ‘agriculture is central to the structural adjustment agenda
of both the IMF and the World Bank, particularly in the case of SSA’ (p. 256). There are
choices to be made, however, and there is agreement across the volumes that the World
Bank and the IMF made the wrong choices in the 1980s. Gibbon et nl., in particular, argue
that the Bretton Woods institutions made three fundamental mistakes in designing adjust-
ment strategies. First, they treated smallholders as homogeneous and undifferentiated, who
would all benefit from price liberalization and the rolling back of the state. Secondly, they
assumed that ‘urban bias’ was the main cause of rural poverty and could be countered by
conditionality. And, thirdly, they assumed that a non-rent-seeking private sector was in
place in Africa to take up the slack as the state withdrew.
Gibbon et al. argue that these three mistakes led to an agricultural policy programme
which discriminated against the rural poor in Africa in the 1980s. They argue instead for a
strategy which recognizes the high degree of social differentiation arising within agriculture,
and the low, dispersed and fragmented nature of agricultural capitalization.
Again, this is all well and good, but insufficiently specific to be of help. What kind of
 New World Food Crisis 865

agricultural development would Gibbon ef al. favour? High potential o r low potential areas?
Growth-inducing o r risk-minimizing? With what balance between state and civil society?
And supported by what kind of national and international political constellation? The
absence of alternative prescription is always worrying in volumes like this. It seems to leave
the battlefield open to the bio-engineers and deregulators represented in Gaul1 and Gold-
berg.
It might be expected that Grigg would provide solutions and, indeed, his regional chapters
do run through the various head of intervention: in the case of sub-Saharan Africa, for
example, cash crops, chemical fertilizers, crop varieties, irrigation, mechanization, livestock
and tenure. However, Grigg’s analysis of the issues is somewhat dated and couched in a
modernization paradigm. For example, at the end of his chapter on Africa, he notes, but
does not discuss, dependency critiques. H e also misses the widening debate on famine,
coping and vulnerability which has dominated the literature since the famine of 1984-85.

Nutrition Policy

And this brings us to the specific nutrition interventions discussed in the last part of Gillespie
and McNeill. Their review is largely general in nature, with occasional illustrations from
Tamil Nadu, though not from their own villages. It draws partly on the analysis of nutrition-
relevant actions conducted at the scretariat of the UN ACC/SCN, where Gillespie worked
at the time the book was published. They discuss general and targeted food subsidies,
employment programmes, women’s empowerment and a variety of health and nutrition
interventions, including India’s integrated child development services (ICDS) and the Chief
Minister’s noon meals programme (CMNMP). They raise many issues, to d o with cost,
targeting efficiency and management intensity. Consistent with their earlier emphasis on the
strong linkage between economic activity, health and nutrition, Gillespie and McNeill argue
for an integrated approach to the food problem: ‘this is well illustrated by the mother’s
pivotal role concerning decisions regarding the feeding and health care of infants. An
understanding of the linkages . . . will allow the relative value of women’s time allocated to
agricultural income-earning to be weighted and compared with the time she spends in
improving sanitation around the home, e.g. gathering fuel to boil water, or caring for a sick
child’ (p. 196). Again, this is a slightly disappointing conclusion. It would have been good
to see Gillespie and McNeill apply their own principles about contextual and direct interven-
tions, ranking the alternatives and making judgements about the allocation of resources. Or
d o they believe that to do this would be to fall into one of the policy-making traps they
describe?

Food Aid

Without a careful analysis of national and local policy, it is difficult to reach sensible
judgements about the scope for external support. Yet, to some extent, this is the task that
Shaw and Clay set themselves in dealing with the role of food aid. Food aid is by no means
the only source of external assistance to food security, but it is an important one: its value
to Africa exceeded the net value of IDA in the 1980s (World Bank and WFP, 1992). It is
also an aid instrument characterized by a complex international regime (on the politics of
which, see Uvin) and by vigorous, often passionate debate (on which see Shaw and Clay’s
introduction to their volume, but also a more outspoken discussion in Uvin).
It ought to be possible from Shaw and Clay to reach a definitive judgement as to the
strengths and weaknesses of food aid. The eight recipient and eight donor case studies in
the book provide a wealth of information about the ways in which food aid is used, and the
introductory chapter by Shaw and Clay introduces most of the main elements in the debate.
The book is, however, somewhat uncritical, as is only to be expected from a compilation
of case studies presented to the Governing Body of the principal multilateral food aid
agency. There is also a very strong bias to project food aid rather than programme food
aid, which again is not surprising given WFP’s exclusion from the latter.
As one example of the uncritical approach, the India case study describes as ‘a distinctive
866 S Maxwell

feature of project food aid to India‘ the provision of WFP supplies at subsidized prices to
participants in public works schemes ( p . 03). These have the effect of increasing the real
wages of workers by some 50 per cent. with the counterpart funds used to purchase loc;il
materials and for other uses. However, the justification for paying ii small number o f
workers above market wages, the impact on the self-targeting nature of public works, the
disparities created betwccn these programmcs and other public employment programmes
in India (on which see Gillespie and McNeil1)-none of these are discussed. In fact, i f food
aid is needed at all, it might simply have lieen hetter t o sell i t at thc port o f entry and uw
the counterpart funds to underwrite the existing national rural employment programme.
There are many other examples in the book of irgcndas left undeveloped.
Nevertheless, Shaw and Clay do provide the mo\t comprehensive account available o f cur-
rent food aid policies and programmes. The hook makes a useful contribution in describing t h e
potential role of food aid, and also in cmphasi7ing the need to locate food aid, alongside
other resources, in a comprehensive programme t o attack poverty and under-nutrition.

CONCLUSION

The final conclusion is that this collection of six hooks adds to the debate. but by no means
provides the last word on current food i.;sucs. Some o f the six arc better than others. Uvin,
in particular, provides an interesting politic;il science perspective and along the way providcs
concise and readable summaries of many current food debates Gille\pie and McNeill, also,
combine an admirably comprehensive theoretical framework with excellent literature re-
views and careful, instructive field work. It is perhaps not surprising that both these bonks
are based on PhDs. Gibbon et a/. offer ii case study of the structuralist critique o f structural
adjustment. Gaul1 and Goldberg is worth dipping into for the debate about how to control
the rampant food industry. Shaw and Clay tias valuc a\ ;I compendium of particularly donor
food aid practices. And Grigg, though niainlq providing an example of how difficult it i’r lo
update a textbook, still has a good dcal of useful nicthodological and statistical material.
However, there is still work to be clone o n the \vorld food problem: i n p;irticular, linking
the agriculture and food production litcratiires t o the vulneral,ility/famine literatures. Prc-
scription seems also, on the evidence heic, t o tic ii neglected art form. Poor people i n
developing countries probably need rather Its\ ad\ ice about the political forces which shape
international regimes, or about the re;isons why the World Bank has got i t wrong in Africa,
and rather more advice on how they ciin mohilizc political support f o r practical policies t h a t
would really make a difference.

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Regional Results, Geneva, October.
ACC/SCN (1995). ‘Refugee nutrition inforination system: report o n the nutrition situation
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February.
Beaton, G. H . et a/. (1993). ‘Effectiveness of vitamin A supplementation in the control of
young child morbidity and mortality in dcveloping countrics‘, Nutrition Policy Di,\cu.s.sroti
Paper No. 13, Geneva: United Nations ACCISC”.
Clay, E . , and Schaffer, B. B. (eds). (19x4). Rootti / o r Marzoeuiw: An Explorution o/’Puhlic
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FAO/WHO, (1992). ‘Major issues for nu~ritioiistrategies’. lnrrrnrrtionrrl C‘onfwc,ncr on
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Hindle, R. E., (1990). ‘Thc World Bank approach to food security analysis‘, Food ,Srcuri~\~
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 New World Food Crisis 867

Maxwell, S. and Buchanan-Smith, M. (cds) ( l w 4 ) . 'linking relief and development'. IDS

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